He is now remembered for his sceptical writings on the soul, which Parliament condemned as blasphemous and ordered to be burned in his presence.
He was admitted a candidate of the College of Surgeons on 5 July 1695, and remained in that position till 1725, when the absence of his name from the lists proves that he must have been dead.
He maintains, partly upon scriptural arguments, that there is no such thing as a separate soul, but that immortal life will be conferred upon the whole man at the resurrection.
[1] The house voted that the books contained offensive doctrines, and ordered them to be burnt by the common hangman.
The proceeding increased the notoriety of Coward's books; and in the same year he published another edition of the Second Thoughts.
[1] Henry Dodwell's Epistolary Discourse, &c. in support of the natural mortality of the soul, appeared in 1706, and led to a controversy with Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins.
[1] In 1706 Coward also published his Ophthalmoiatria, chiefly medical, but in which he ridicules the Cartesian notion of an immaterial soul residing in the pineal gland.
Jonathan Swift and other contemporaries frequently ridicule Coward in company with John Toland, Collins, and other deists.
[1] Coward published two poetical works, The Lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, an heroic poem (1705), which seems to have disappeared; and Licentia Poetica discussed ... to which are added critical observations on .